Data centers are generally buildings that house large numbers of file servers, data processors, network switches, or other heat-generating computer components. Typically, the interior of a data center is filled with multiple rows of two or four post racks that hold electronic data processing (EDP) equipment that are arranged in parallel relation to one another throughout the data center. An aisle for service personnel may be provided between each row of racks and at ends of the rows. Each rack may house multiple, vertically spaced computer components. In this manner, a very large number of components may be placed in a data center.
The heat collectively generated by very large numbers of densely packed components within a data center may be sufficient to cause catastrophic failure of the components. Accordingly, even the earliest data centers were air conditioned twenty-four hours per day, every day of the year. As can be appreciated, cooling requirements often adds significant cost to the operation of a data center. Further, heat most often is the limiting factor in the density of components that may be placed into a data center.
In addition to temperature constraints, the amount of cabling required in data centers may be very high, due to the number of components that require network connectivity. Often, the racks in a data center are positioned on a raised floor, so that numerous cables may be run under the floor to provide connectivity to the components. Additionally or alternatively, the cables may be routed in cable trays that are positioned above the racks. Further, the racks themselves often contain multiple cables extending from them to components in the same, or other racks. The cables in a rack normally are attached to back of the mounted EDP equipment. Cabling clutter on the front or back of the mounted equipment is especially harmful to equipment cooling because the great majority of modern EDP equipment take in cooling air from the front of their chassis via the front of the cabinet and eject hot exhaust air at the rear of their chassis or vice versa. The mounted data processing equipment occupies the central volume of the rack, which is normally reserved for mounted equipment. A large number of cables may restrict the airflow and ventilation in the racks and in the data center generally, which has the effect impeding the cooling of the components in the data center.
Additionally, the available space in the equipment racks may be limited. The expense of a modern data center suggests optimum utilization of that space for end-use computer equipment. The communication cabling and associated equipment (e.g., the local area network, or LAN) may be considered a data center infrastructure, similar to power and cooling. Hence, removing the LAN components from the central volume of the equipment racks reserved for EDP equipment may improve the optimization of the deployment of the end-use equipment.
It is against this background that the data center network distribution system of the present invention has been developed.